


can you come to where i'm staying and make some extra love?

by pleasekalemenow



Series: How can the body die? You tell me everything (Two of Hearts) [3]
Category: High Noon Over Camelot - The Mechanisms (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Communication, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluffy Body Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, It's just at the beginning though dw, M/M, Post-HNOC, Reunions, Trauma Recovery, Yes you read that right, this was going to be horny but then they communicated. wtf, unless you consider the more existential horror of hairless jonny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23473252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasekalemenow/pseuds/pleasekalemenow
Summary: When Brian sees him in the all-encompassing brightness of the sun, he thinks maybe the heat has finally cracked Carmilla’s coding. Just because he’s not supposed to be able to go mad doesn’t mean it’s impossible. God knows this heat has caused some madness in its time.(Brian and Jonny have a much-needed conversation after returning from the sun.)---Title is from "Remember My Name" by Mitski.A gift for my dear friend <3
Relationships: Drumbot Brian/Jonny d'Ville
Series: How can the body die? You tell me everything (Two of Hearts) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1692739
Comments: 49
Kudos: 224
Collections: Stowaways' Shenanigans





	can you come to where i'm staying and make some extra love?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [orcamermaid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orcamermaid/gifts).



When Brian sees him in the all-encompassing brightness of the sun, he thinks maybe the heat has finally cracked Carmilla’s coding. Just because he’s not  _ supposed _ to be able to go mad doesn’t mean it’s  _ impossible _ . God knows this heat has caused some madness in its time.

It’s not until he feels the cable lasso around his neck–one last noose–that it even occurs to him that there’s any possibility that he’s really looking at Jonny d’Ville. And it doesn’t dawn on him that he’s being pulled to safety until he’s jerked into his arms, skin blistering and melting and reforming itself in the heat that really should have disintegrated them both if it wouldn’t be bad for the narrative. He clings to him tightly as the melting skin melds to his metal, and he can smell something cooking and he’s distantly aware of how  _ hot _ he must be, metal cooked for god knows how long in a star, but Jonny’s hands are stroking his hair and even if he’s dripping flesh into it that will be hell to get out at least that hell is one where Brian is no longer  _ alone. _

Gradually the heat lessens and when he looks up from where he’s been burying his face into Jonny’s neck he realizes the absolute fucking lunatic jumped into the sun with a  _ jet pack _ . It shouldn’t have worked. Jonny should have been stuck in the sun with him. His clothes all burned off, and his hair; the cable, the jet pack, they both should have met the same fate. But they didn’t, and Brian refuses to question why until they’re out of the gravitational pull of Avalon and back (safely?) on the Aurora.

It’s an ordeal, separating the two of them. In the end, Tim just shoots Jonny and then peels him off of Brian, leaving behind most of the skin that was touching him. Brian is a bit simpler to get clean: first a flamethrower, then a high pressure hose. For his part, he’s mostly just dissociating from the moment the flames come into contact with him, so it doesn’t bother him all that much. He doesn’t come back to himself until he realizes all the others have left the room except Jonny, and he’s by the door, and he’s pretty sure they said something about giving him some space but he didn’t quite clock it in time and suddenly he’s full of  _ panic _ .

“ _ Wait!” _

Jonny pauses in the doorframe. He’s up, but there are a few patches of skin on his face that still look a little thin, and he hasn’t bothered to regrow his hair yet. “What is it?”

“Please.” All the energy has suddenly drained out of him, leaving him cold and empty, and he can’t be  _ alone _ , too. “Don’t go.”

“...Right, then.” He thinks his brow might be furrowed, but it’s a bit hard to tell from across the room with the hair scorched off. The man rocks back and forth on his heels for a moment. “You weren’t responding, figured you just...wanted some alone time.”

Brian shudders at the thought. “I’ve had plenty of that.”

“Right.” He looks away from him, still not wearing any fucking clothes, shaking his knee rapidly as the tap of his bare feet makes a soft, insistant noise that is infinitely better than the roaring nothing Brian has listened to for centuries. He’s suddenly overwhelmed by the brief recollection of Jonny’s arms around him, bringing him home, and he wonders if telling Jonny the truth--that he wants that again--is worth Jonny’s look of discomfort just being in the room with him. He’s on MJE right now, but for once, he isn’t sure that it is. He’s staring, and he’s surprised Jonny hasn’t shot him yet. “...What  _ do _ you want, then?”

If Brian didn’t know Jonny, he would think that he was annoyed at him. But he does know Jonny. He’s annoyed, sure, but it’s not at Brian. Probably at the fact that everyone else has left him alone with Brian, which will almost certainly result in him having to engage with  _ feelings _ . Still, he asked a question, and it’s wrong to lie.

“I would really like to be held.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he drops his eyes to the floor, hit suddenly by the fact that  _ Jonny might say no _ and it was stupid for him to open himself up to that after so  _ long _ on the brink of a meltdown. “You don’t have to. Obviously. I’m sure you could send Marius back here if you don’t want to--if you want to leave. I’m not going to make you stay.”

He can’t bring himself to look at Jonny, unable to stomach whatever expression he must be making. There’s a pause that might not actually be long, but feels somehow longer than his first century in the sun. “Do you  _ want _ me to get Marius?”

Brian frowns, looking up at him. He knows that tone, even if time has made him rusty. Sure enough, Jonny’s biting the inside of his cheek, and his leg is moving like crazy. He’s feeling insecure. Brian is shaking his head before he’s even fully processed his body language. “I’ve missed you, Jonny. You’d always be my preference. I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

Jonny stands awkwardly for a moment before shutting the door and strutting over to him with an echo of his usual bravado. Brian is sitting, has been for some time, and so he straddles his lap with little fanfare, wrapping his arms around him and burying his face in his shoulder, their chests flush against each other. It isn’t quite skin-to-skin anymore--yet another comfort stripped from him by the good Doctor--but it’s a near enough facsimile that he hardly misses the real thing anymore. It’s easier to pretend he’s what he once was with Jonny’s grounding weight on his lap, tethering him to reality. Brian wonders if he knows how close he is to drifting away. He wonders if he knows that he’s the only reason he held out for so long, the reason it took him so long to stop believing that they were coming back.

He wonders if he knows that Brian didn’t think they were coming back anymore.

Ugh, he’s crying. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with crying, but he  _ hates _ crying around Jonny; it’s the most surefire way to get him to bolt, and Brian is clinging onto him right now like he’s what’s really keeping his rust-poisoned heart pumping instead of the machinery that imprisons him (which, fuck, still needs replacing (he wishes Nastya were here)). And maybe he is, honestly. Jonny talks a big game about narrative being the thing that keeps them all going, but privately, Brian thinks it’s the will to carry on itself that makes their mechanisms tick. Even at their lowest, they all have each other, which gives them all a reason to persist. And he has Jonny--wait. He still has Jonny. He isn’t leaving. He’s so stiff that if he were a drink he wouldn’t be safe around an open flame (not that he’s safe around fire as a person), but he’s still in his arms, on his lap, nuzzling into his neck.

“I’m sorry,” Brian mumbles.

Jonny scoffs against his plating. “What are  _ you _ sorry for?”

“Crying. I know it makes you uncomfortable.” He brings his hand to rest at the nape of his neck, where he would ordinarily play with his hair were it not burned off. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

He’s silent for a moment, then pulls back to look at him, poker face fully donned. “Do you  _ want _ me to leave, Brian?”

“No,” he breathes, a bit stunned by the use of his name. He can’t remember the last time he heard it. Not  _ Hanged Man _ , not  _ Merlin _ , but  _ Brian _ . It sounds better than he remembered on Jonny’s lips.

“Then why do you keep bringing it up?”

“Because you keep leaving me so I just assume that at any given moment you’re looking for your opportunity to do it again, and I’m not interested in having you around if you don’t want to be with me.” The truth is out before he can think it through, and he watches as the words slice straight through him. Jonny balls his hands into fists where they rest on his shoulders. He looks away from him, not in any particular direction, just...around. It’s not until he looks up and takes a shaky breath that Brian realizes why: his eyes are glistening. He’s just trying not to cry. Brian doesn’t know what to do. He wants to comfort him, but he was the one who hurt him, wasn’t he? And he can’t lie and say he didn’t mean it or that it came out wrong. Mercifully, Jonny speaks up before panic can really begin to set in.

“I hate leaving you.” Jonny still isn’t looking at him. Probably because he’s lost the battle against a natural emotional process, and a few tears are streaking down his healing cheeks. Brian decides the right thing to do is to not comment on it. “I just. Don’t always know how to come back once I’m gone.”

Brian raises a tentative hand to brush the tears away. “You figure it out. Sometimes it just takes a while.”

“It doesn’t take  _ you _ any time.” He sniffs. “Hell, you never run away to begin with. It’s just...it’s easier for you, I don’t know why I can’t get this, I’ve had more time than damn near anyone in the universe to figure out how to be good to you and I still treat you worse than anyone else.”

“Oh, you’re giving yourself too much credit. Some folks strung me up on the gallows and then when I didn’t die at least a dozen generations of people left me to hang.” He smiles in a way he hopes is reassuring. “You’re better than  _ that _ .”

“Jesus, that’s such a low fucking bar. Is that comparison supposed to make me feel better?”

“It was  _ supposed _ to be a joke.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, it’s true, but it was, you know.” He sighs. “Sorry. I haven’t spoken to anyone in a few centuries. And before that wasn’t much better.”

Jonny’s face twists. “I should have come back for you.”

“You thought I was taking a vacation.”

“Bullshit, you were taking some time to cool down after some stupid stunt I pulled and I got so paranoid about the whole thing I spent the better part of a millenia looking for excuses to avoid everything. Avoid  _ you _ .”

Brian winces a bit. “Thought brutal honesty was  _ my _ thing.”

“Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.”

“You wish I was.” Brian winks, and he actually manages to get a laugh with that one, but he thinks he knows what Jonny needs to hear now. “I don’t hate you, you know.” Jonny stills, doesn’t respond. “On the contrary, I still love you. So much. And I’ve missed you every moment I was gone.”

Jonny swallows, then gives him a shaky smile. “We both know I’m not big on dealing with trauma in healthy ways, but I’m pretty sure I’m meant to be comforting  _ you _ right now.”

“You are.” At the puzzled look he gets in response, he elaborates, “I’ve been alone for so long. Just having you here...hearing your voice, holding you, it’s more than I ever thought I’d get again.”

At that, Jonny can’t seem to take any more, and lunges forward, catching Brian’s mouth in his with his particular brand of too-much-teeth and weaving a hand through his hair as he cradles his face in the other. Brian’s heart aches at the familiarity of it, and it doesn’t seem right that the kiss feels so bittersweet when there’s nothing to be bitter about anymore, but each tug of Jonny’s teeth on his lips, every confusingly gentle caress of his tongue against his own, against the roof of his mouth is pulling the poison out of his soul and it’s healing but it  _ hurts _ .

“You can have as much as you want,” Jonny pants against his lips. “You can take me, everything I have. I owe you more than that for everything I’ve put you through, but it’s the best I can offer.”

“Oh, Jonny. You don’t owe me anything.” Brian smiles, pulling him by his neck back in for a tender kiss, feeling Jonny whimper more than hearing it. “But you are more than I could have ever hoped for.”

Jonny doesn’t say  _ I love you _ , not really, but every reverent touch and every drag of Jonny’s tongue as they comfort each other feel an awful lot like  _ I love you _ to Brian. He doesn’t have the same hangups, of course, and it would be wrong for him to conceal the enormity of his love, so it isn’t long before love, both spoken and silent, is all either of them can feel.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, please contribute to my gay rights fund by leaving kudos and a comment! And if you're Karin, love u friendo (if you're not Karin there's a good chance I love u too)


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